his terms and descriptions, he uses too much paint. If he is negligent in his expressions, the figures in his pictures are always slipshod, or have lost the buttons from their coats. If he is over precise and trim, the animals in his paintings always look as though they had just been curried. If he is accustomed to over estimate and over praise what belongs to himself, the insects that live on his flowers are always employed in gathering honey; the songs he hears carolled in his garden are all the songs of the nightingale; and the fruits he gathers in his orchard are always nectarines, oranges, and pine-apples. It will be of service to collect the most beautiful and striking forms of the figure in the Scriptures, the poets, the orators, and in conversation, and to learn to use it by tracing the forms in which it may be employed, and indicating the class of analogies which it is its office to express. CHAPTER VIII. THE APOSTROPHE. AN Apostrophe is a direct address, in a speech, argument, narrative, or prediction, to a person or object that is the subject of discourse; or to one who hears, and is to form a judgment respecting it: as when an advocate in a plea suspends his narrative or argument, and makes an appeal to the judge in respect to the character of the facts that are under investigation, or the principles on which the validity of the evidence respecting them is to be determined; or when an orator, in depicting the life of some one who has departed, arrests the story, and addresses himself directly to the dead, as though he were present, and aware of what is taking place. Thus Isaiah, in announcing the visible advent of the Messiah, the earthquake with which the globe is then to be shaken, and the ruin in which all the objects of the vain confidence of the Israelites are to be involved, arrests the prediction, and, in a direct address, summons them immediately to flee to the dens and caverns, and hide themselves, as though the lightnings of his presence were about to flash on their vision: "Go ye into the rock, and hide thee in the dust from before the terror of Jehovah, and from the glory of his majesty" (chap. ii. 10). In like manner, in the allegory (Is. v. 1–7) betwixt the description of the vineyard and the prediction of its destruction, there is a direct address to the people of Jerusalem and Judah, whom the allegory represents: "And now, O inhabitant of Jerusalem, and man of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done unto it? Why when I expected that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? But come now, and I will make known unto you what I purpose to do to my vineyard." The figure is used in a bold and impressive form (Is. x. 21-23), in announcing the destroying judgments with which the Israelites were to be smitten: "A remnant shall return, a remnant of Jacob, to God Almighty. For though thy people, O Israel, shall be like the sand of the sea, a remnant, a remnant of them shall return. A consumption is decreed overflowing in righteousness. For the consumption decreed, the Lord Jehovah of hosts. will make in all the earth." And again, in verses 24-26, that follow: "Nevertheless, thus saith the Lord God of hosts, O my people, inhabiting Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian. He shall smite thee with the rod, and shall lift up his staff upon thee in the way of Egypt. For yet a little while, and wrath is at end; and my anger to their destruction. And Jehovah of hosts shall raise up against him a scourge, like the smiting of Midian at the rock Oreb, and his rod over the sea." Christ's address to Jerusalem-put by metonymy for the population-is an example of the figure: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not; behold, your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt. xxiii. 37, 38). Inanimate objects, also, are often apostrophized. There are several examples of that form of the figure in Isaiah xiv. 8-20. The fir-trees and cedars are exhibited as addressing the king of Babylon: "Even the fir-trees rejoice over thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down no feller is come up against us.” On his entrance intc the world of the dead, the spirits of the chiefs and kings of the earth are represented as awaiting him: "All they shall speak and say unto him, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, the noise of thy viols. The worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down which didst weaken the nations!" Immaterial things are often apostrophized; and in those instances the objects addressed are also treated according to their proper nature. Cowper: "Domestic happiness! thou only bliss Of Paradise that has survived the fall! Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure, Thus It is happiness that is addressed and described throughout, and as happiness, though taste, tasting, sweets, and nurse, are used by a metaphor; while |